Martyr, hero, or villain? This feature-length presentation of American Experience explores the many contradictory facets of the career of General George Armstrong Custer: from his memorable, wild charge at Gettysburg—one that turned the tide of the battle—to his deadly assault on an encampment of mostly women, children, and old men along the Washita River in 1868 to his lonely, untimely death at the hands of Sitting Bull and a large army of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors near the Little Bighorn River in 1876. It is the story of a man who, having tasted fame early in life, was unable to resist increasingly reckless opportunities to remain in the limelight and burnish his legend.